Morning journal and courier., 1887-08-12
News by Telegraph
 FROM ALL QUARTERS. FLUNG THROUGH A BRIDGE. An Excursion Trains Awful Fate. OVER 4 HUNDRED KILLED And Four Times Asl
 Many Injured. l FEARFUL SCENES OF HORROR. | Dead and Dying Piled
 In Heaps. 1 THIEVES DRIVE 4 BIG TRADE. The Victims Plundered On
 Every Hand.
THIEVES DRIVE A BIG TRADE.
WAS THE BRIDGE SET AFIRE.

WAS THE BRIDGE SET AFIRE.
 Awful Suspicion That the Disaster | Was the Result of PremedItated
 PIan-Dead and Dying Robbed by a
 Heartless Gang of Vandals The
 Awful Poll of the Dead and Injured-
 One Hundred and Eighteen Lives
 LOst-Over Four Hundred Injured,
 Many of Whom VIII Die-A Graphic | Tale of the Wreck.
 CHICAGO, Aug. 1.-The Chicago Times special from Forest, H., says: All the hor-
 TOTS in the history of this country were I surpassed three miles east of Chatsworth last I plight when an excursion train on the Toledo, Peoria and Western road dropped through Y @ burning bridge and over one hundred peo- pie were killed and four times that number were more or less badly injured Thetrain was ! composed of six sleeping cars, six day coach es and chair cars and three baggage. It was ! carrying 960 passengers, all excursionists, ! and was bound for Niagara Falls. The train had been made up all along the line of the Toledo, Peoria and Western road. When it drew out of Peoria at 8 o'clock last evening it was loaded to it's utmost capacity. Every berth in the six sleepers was taken and the day cars carried sixty people each. The train was heavy that two engines were hitched to it, and when it passed this
 place it was an hour and half behind time. Chatsworth, the next station east of here, is
 six miles off and the run there was made in seven minutes, so the terrible momentum of
 those fifteen coaches and two engines, shoot
 ing through space at the rate of g mile O
 minute, can Ee understood No stop was made at Chatsworth and on the heavy train with it's living freight sped through the dark ness of the night. Three miles east of Chats worth is little slough where the railroad crosses 8 dry run about ten feet deep and fifteen feet wide. Over this stretched an ordinary wooden trestle bridge, and as the excursion train came laundering on what was the horror of the 1 engineer on the front engine when he saw that this bridge was afre. Right up before l his eyes leaped the bright flames and the l next instant he was among them. There was no chance to stop. Had there been warning I it would have taken half mile to stop that ! onrushing mass of wood, iron and human I lives and the tram was within one hundred | yards of the red tongued messengers of death l before they flashed their fatal signals into | the engineers face. But he passed over in l safety, the first engine keeping the rails. As | it went over the bridge fell beneath it and it | could only have been the terrific speed of the | train which saved the lives of the engineer I and his fireman. But the next engine went | down and instantly the deed of death was | done. Car crushed into ear. Coaches piled | one on top of another and in the twinkling of | an eye nearly one hundred people found in- stant death and fifty more were so hurt they l could not live. As for the wounded they were everywhere. Only the sleeping coaches escaped and as the startled and half dressed passengers came tumbling out of them they found such a scene of death as is rarely wit messed and such work to do that it seemed Gs if human hands were utterly incapable. It lacked but five minutes of midnight. Down in the ditch lay the second engineer, McClin-
 tock, dead, and Fireman Applegate badly injured. On top were piled the three bag gage cars one upon another like a child's card house after he had swept it with his hand. Then came the six day coaches. They were teleseoped as cars never were before and three of them were
 pressed into just space enough for one.
 The second car had mounted off it's trucks | and crashed through the car ahead of it,
 crushing the woodwork aside like finder and
 lay there resting on the tops of the seats,
 while every passenger in the front car was | lying dead and dying underneath. Out of that car but four people came alive. On | top of the second car lay the third and it's
 bottom was smeared with the blood of the | victims The other three cars were not so badly crushed, but they were broken and twisted in every conceivable way and every | crushed timber and beam represented crushed human frame and broken bone. l Instantly the air filled with the cries
 of wounded and the shrieks of the dying. | The groaEs of men and the screams of | tod fO r)oak ka and above all could be heard the | agonizing cries of little children as in some instances they lay pinioned alongside their | dead parents. And there was another danger Il yet to be met. The bridge was still burning | and the wrecked cars were lying on and Il around the fercely blazing embers. Every where in the wreck were wounded and un-
 hurt men, women and children whose lives
 could be saved if they could be gotten out,
 but whose death, and death in a most horri-
 ble form, was certain if the twisted wood of
 the broken cars caught fire, and to fight the | fire there was not drop of water and only | fifty able-bodied men who still had presence
 of mind and nerve enough to
 do their duty. The only light was the light of the burning bridge. For
 four hours these men fought like fiends and | for four hours the victory hung in the bal
 ance. Earth was the only weapon with l which the foe could be fought, but there was
 no pick or shovel to dig it up, no baskets or
 DarTOWS to carry 1G. 90 O6Sp6EaL0 were GAo | men that they dug their fingers down into | the earth, which long drought had baked almost as hard as stone, and heaped the l precious handfuls upon the encroach1ng |
 flames, and with this earthwork built hand | ful by handful kept back the foe While l this was going on other brave men crept | underneath the wrecked cars, beneath the | fire and the wooden bar which held as pris- l oners so many precious lives, and with pieces of board and sometimes their hands Deat | back the flames when they flashed up l alongside some unfortunate wretch who was pinned down by heavy beam. Final | ly the victory was won. The ire was put out after four hours of endeavor and as It's I last sparks died away the the dawn came up | on scene of horror. l While the fight had been going on, men had been dying, and there were not so many wounded to take out of the wreck as there had been four hours before. But in the l meantime the country had been aroused Help had come from ChatswoTth, Forest and Piper City, and as the dead were laid rever- ently alongside of each other out in the corn 1 fields there were ready hands to take them into Chatsworth, while some Of the wounded | were carried to Piper City. One hundred and | eighteen was the awful poll of the dead | The full tale of the dead cannot, however, be told for days. Chatsworth was turned into ! a morgus to-day. The Town hall, the engine | house the depot were all full of dead bodies, while every house in the little village has its quota of the wounded. There were over one
 hundred corpses lying in the extemporized
 dead houses, and every man and woman was | turned into an amateur but jealous nurse. Over in lumber yard the noise of hammers
 and saws rang out on the air and busy car
 penters were making rough cofins to carry the dead to their homes. When the news of
 the disaster was first flashed over the wires prompt aid was at once sent. Dr. Steele,
 chief surgeon of the Toledo. Peoria
 and Western road. came on special train and with him were two other surgeons and their assistants. Peoria also sent Drs.
 Martin, Baker, FIuegler and Johnson and